Telcos should share active infra: Trai

In August, the regulator issued a consultation paper aimed at reviewing scope of infrastructure providers, or IP-I entities, which provide towers on rent or sale to telcos, and other assets such as dark fibre and duct space.

The regulator has said the definition of infrastructure is based on enumeration about active and passive elements.

NEW DELHI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman RS Sharma has said that expanding the scope of telecom infrastructure companies to allow them to share active infrastructure would help reduce capital and operational expenses of stressed mobile phone companies, and lead to ease of doing business.

“Services and infrastructure will be unbundled, and it would ultimately become infrastructure as a service (IaaS) for telecom carriers, and they can easily share networks with reduced capex and opex,” Sharma told ET.

In August, the regulator issued a consultation paper aimed at reviewing scope of infrastructure providers, or IP-I entities, which provide towers on rent or sale to telcos, and other assets such as dark fibre and duct space.

Sharma said the regulator wants to further promote infrastructure sharing as the service providers already outsource network maintenance, so that such a cost could be lowered. “This (scope enhancement) will make sharing of infrastructure and other resources easier, and would ultimately lead to ease of doing business,” the top official added.

The regulator has said the definition of infrastructure is based on enumeration about active and passive elements which on a larger perspective becomes less relevant while only services and infrastructure remain critical segments in today’s age of convergence.